Business: Bids Rigged

Two companies cop a plea

Like the oil industry as a whole, the multibillion-dollar business of
building offshore drilling platforms and pipelines is a highly
profitable, as well as risky venture in which many dwarfs live in the
shadow of a handful of titans. Of them all, the two largest are J. Ray
McDermott & Co. of New Orleans (1977 sales: $1.3 billion) and
Houston's Brown & Root Inc. ($1 billion).

For the past two years, a federal grand jury in New Orleans has been
investigating just how it could be that...